mp3 player advice

[craigw]

guys, short term fix, I need an mp3 player as a gift for gf, muct be super user friendly, massive memory not a must, sound quality is, budget around £150ish, ideas pls ?

[tycho]

You could go with the iPod nano 4Gb for £179 or maybe the Creative Zen 20Gb for £150?

Both very good. The nano is the trandy choice with less memory but it is flash based and is very small. The creative will have more features but isn't an "iPod"

[thepassenger]

iPod shuffle maybe?
Reasonably cheap, good sound quality and fairly easy to use both it an itunes.

[Platinum]

thepassenger said:

iPod shuffle maybe? Reasonably cheap, good sound quality and fairly easy to use both it an itunes.

You could buy a 512mb one for a 1/3 of your budget, a no frills player. If your not bothered about viewing the tracks on the device then it'll be fine; (theres a 1gb one for about £15 more.)

[MarkoTVR]

Just bought a Samsung YP-U1 1GB player from Amazon, came to just under £70 I think. I'm pretty chuffed with it so far, seems to have a decent interface for adding MP3s to it and charges from a USB port. Also bought a Rimax USB mains/car charger from RMX Direct so I can charge the Samsung away from a PC, and that was about £17 all in.

[zumbruk]

I've had a Creative Zen for 2 or 3 weeks now, 20Gb capacity, of which 3500 tracks occupies about 17Gb. I'm chuffed to bits with it. The PC software is a tad clunky, but works well enough. I've not had any of the user interface hassles some people report, the sound quality is excellent and it sneaks in under the £150 budget.

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/202-7722099-9779831

(Listened to a random assortment of punk tracks on it on the way in this morning, on account of it being 30 years since "Anarchy in the UK" was released.)

>> Edited by zumbruk on Thursday 30th March 11:54

[Sparks]

If sound quality is an issue, then get a cheaper player, and a good set of third party headphone. Not looked at this recently, so don't know what is the current 'best buy'.

As a Mac user I am biased, and would suggest an iPod of some description. iTunes (on my Mac at least) is so simple to use. I think the 1Gb Nano is £110+£40 for headphones. You can also keep the headphone, when you upgrade the player( you did mention 'quick fix'). I am sure there are alternatives for less money/with more capacity. A colleague, who is anti Mac, and a gadget freak had a Zen, until he got the Archos media player, so that is the other option.

HTH

Sparks



>> Edited by Sparks on Thursday 30th March 22:53